Monday, March 9, 2009

Weighing Heavily on my heart

I haven't been here in so long. And I wish that I could tell you why. I know that is a multi part answer really and here are some of the reasons.

When your husband comes home, you lose your perspective.

Life takes over as I talked about on my home blog Life with Mad Max. Life just seems busy and normal and suddenly I don't know that I have much to offer to my other military mommies. Yes, I can visit THEIR blogs and leave encouraging comments, and cheer them on as they post their own reunion photos, or cry with them from miles away because I feel the pain that they are walking in. But do I still have something to say about what it feels like when your husband is thousands of miles away? I'm not sure because mine is sitting next to me.

When you aren't living it daily, writers block takes over.

I never had to think about what to write when I was living this life as a military mommy on a day to day basis. It was my LIFE. It was my daily experience, and every morning I woke up for it to hit me square in the face. I was a single mommy because my husband was deployed. It didn't take much effort and the words came naturally. And now, what does my voice have left to share??

It's easy to forget.

It's easy to forget the pain, the tears of loneliness, the hurts, the struggles and the challenges that being a military mommy brings along. It's easy to forget when things go back to normal. When you lay yourself down at night and reach over to a warm body. It's easy to forget when you have someone to help you grocery shop and put your heavy child to bed at night and get up with you when your baby is sick at 3AM. It's so much easier.

BUT it's so easy to remember and it weighs on me heavily. I feel it daily. I see one of our best friends leaving this week for a 4 month training. I see his wife and his two babies, unknowing of what is about to happen to their family. I see them struggle with unimportant arguments and I reach over to squeeze the arm of my fellow military mommy and tell her that it's normal. I see the looks my husband recieves when he comes to church after drill weekend, still in uniform, holding the hand of our toddling child, the thank yous resonate within me. I listen to the speaker talk about how we have each been called to something, something that we struggle through, with acceptance, we shine and with open arms we learn that maybe we were meant to help someone else, to save someone else. I am reminded that it is worth it, with every pang of empathy, I am reminded what it felt like, when this was MY LIFE.

And so I sit down to write. To remember the pain and the sadness. To tell you that it is still a struggle at times when I see the effects that these wars have left behind on my husband. To pray for you. To let you know that I have not forgotten and I still think of you daily.

Always,
Jesi

3 comments:

Alicia said...

I totally understand this.

Jesi said...

It's hard when you are riding the fence!

it's me, just me, nothing fancy, just simple me said...

so when they come home and they unpack their duffle bags and you've washed their geat three times to get 'that' smell out, he may not be deployed anymore, but you're still a military mom. he still gets up at quarter til crack of dawn for pt and then rushes home for a quick shower and breakfast with your toddler before heading back to the office. and though he may be just a few miles down the road, with the helicopters flying over head, i know i'm a military mom because in 320something days, those duffles will be packed again and the cycle will start again. so, deployed or in garrison, i'm still a military mom and so are you.